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Amazon is forging new "literary terrain" with its e-singles platform, a self-publishing enterprise that has sold nearly 5 million copies since its 2011 launch and is now drawing a profit, Leslie Kaufman writes. Amazon Kindle Singles is a hybrid that publishes and sells novella-length pieces of between 5,000 and 30,000 words, with authors keeping 70% of each sale.

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Low-income Americans could get government support for connecting to broadband under a House bill that would broaden the purview of the Federal Communications Commission's Lifeline subsidy program. The program, which is funded by "Universal Service" fees embedded in phone bills, provides financial support for telephone service, but under the proposed Broadband Adoption Act of 2013 funds would be applied to bridging the digital divide.

LG Electronics says it sold 10.3 million smartphones in the first quarter, an increase of 28.5% over the same quarter last year and setting a sales record for the South Korean company. The surge was driven by demand for phones such as the Optimus G and the Nexus 4, and helped drive a fourfold increase in profits for the company's mobile unit.

Netflix's drive to become a purveyor of original content could undercut its relationship with Hollywood studios as the streaming platform becomes more discriminating about the shows and movies it is willing to license, observers say. Netflix, which now has more U.S. subscribers than HBO, has offered studios and networks such as Viacom and CBS a steady stream of revenue, but analysts say the evolution of the streaming platform is changing that dynamic and will likely cause Hollywood to take a hit.

Apple has added Breakout Books, an iBookstore section that features self-published works, many distributed by e-book publishing platform Smashwords. Amazon's best-seller lists increasingly include self-published books, and many self-published works are winning readers with retail prices that are much lower than those of best-sellers from traditional publishers, Smashwords CEO Mark Coker said.

Borders has partnered with Bookbrewer to create a simple e-book self-publishing service that lets authors write works of any length and set their own suggested retail prices. The announcement was made days after Amazon debuted Kindle Singles, a publishing service for digital works that are shorter than traditional books. The capabilities continue to blur the line between books and "not quite books," GigaOm writes.